Turbulence
Tuesday April 29, 2008
Well, this is turning out to be a week of weird, off-key happenings that quite frankly discomfit the inner synapses.
Starting with the most recent bygones, Hans Reiser has been convicted of first-degree murder, in circumstantial evidence. There’s no mention of it being a unanimous verdict but apparently he pissed off the Judge and Jury by acting “arrogant” and getting his knickers in a twist. A Möbius loop of the underpants beguiled his appearance enough to leave a bad impression….
Humphrey Lyttleton has sadly moved on, taking his marvellous humour and jazz away from a place that could do with more of it. A quality character on the air, I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue will not be the same without him. I raise my glass, or a mime glass since I don’t have one handy, to his achievements, and memories of those good times.
What the hell is with the madhouse at Fritzl Enterprises? My opinion isn’t too far from anyone else’s on the matter. I feel for those doing the cleanup – most psychoanalysts will have a hard enough time with the kids before dissecting this oddball into some metaphorical Petri dish for further analysis. The co-occurrence of this with the recent announcement of kinky endeavours being scrutinized by our watchful keepers is likely to amplify the connection between weird shit on the internet and weirdos with basements.
A sensitive issue, but this legislation has been knocking around for months. Why choose now to finally swing this Sword of Damocles? Violence in depictions of sex has provided enough contention over the years to outsize all other liberal arguing combined. Rooted in the theatrical debates of old, asking what is acceptably debasing to the viewer. Most arguments are congealed from the same old brain porridge – “doing it” and “referencing it” are two different things. The slashdot debate evidences this no-end.
My tuppence is that I might consider burning my small collection of Wilbur Smith, lest the government step in the door and find I’ve been reading about all sorts – rape, whipping (not cream), disproportionate genitalia on dwarves… There’s enough literary depictions of lubricious encounters to grease up a pig and roast it, but no telling which ones get you off.
When will the madness halt for a moment and realise real-time scanning of every human head is the only way to moderate normality. With reference to what I’ve been wasting spending my time revising, society functions as an artificial immune system for such pathogenic humanity, but scapegoating causes takes progress nowhere. You can’t blame a single viral cell for the existence of the disease.
Sympathies and due respect to all those affected by people with a cog or two loose.